Beginning in 1994 with a mandatory hunter education program, Alabama's Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries has continued to introduce, almost yearly, new outreach programs in both hunter and conservation education. Alabama Conservation Enforcement Officers (CEOs) are often required to participate in these programs. Some law enforcement personnel feel that the outreach programs take up a relatively large percentage of a CEO's time and have a detrimental effect on enforcement efforts. Surprisingly, this study shows that a CEO spends just over 5% of his time with outreach programs and much of this is before the opening of hunting seasons. In addition, enforcement data seems to be correlated with number of law enforcement officers on the job rather than time spent working on outreach programs.
